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@TheEstablishment In that scenario MS wouldn't care at all and it wouldn't tarnish their reputation in any meaningful way. You are talking about of the bigget publishers around now, who also happen to be practically competition free in the PC space. it would be like apple doing something shady and expecting everyone to suddenly boycott their products.

Less than 5% of the total gaming would be affected and actually care so MS would not even flinch at those numbers.

@OldGamer999 I mentioned it on the other post but the problem with timed exclusivity is how small the Xbox share of the pie really is if you are commiting to bringing games to all platforms anyway.

Looking at current sales of Switch / PS5 / X-S the Xbox makes up 12% of those. If the plan is for games like Halo / Gears / Forza / Doom / Elders Scrolls to be on all platforms in future then it makes no sense to only offer it to a tiny % of consumers on launch and the rest 6 months later. the initial sales hype will have died down and real feedback starts appearing. There are plenty of examples of games being hyped, for it to be quickly tempered when players actually got their hands on the game.

And at present its an issue that mainly hurts MS because they are in last place. Sony and Nintendo can keep playing the game, MS has to adapt and once the top brass get a taste of that increased income they wont be walking back from it.

@Kaloudz I would agree MS are trying to redefine their identity hence the everything is an Xbox campaign. However I think they have forgotten that the brand identity is not what you say it is, its what the consumers view it as. Right now I can't see them being able to convince people xbox no longer means the hardware when thats exactly what its meant for 23 years.

@Fiendish-Beaver As things progress I would say its going to be more likely that games will be day and date on all consoles. Xbox lost last gen and that has trickled down into an abyssmal showing for them this gen. 32 million units is nothing to scoff at, but MS themselves will not be happy with those numbers.

As the gap continues to widen I think it will be a very hard sell to explain to shareholders why you are making titles like FH6 available to 12% of your potential market on day one. Its not going to convince people to swap platform, it will only risk losing initial sales whilst titles are still hot.

@HonestHick I would still disagree with you on that front. What fans are calling for is that the studios be left to create games that align with their expertise, rather than the everything must be live service push which happened a few years back.

No one is saying we don't ever want another multiplayer game. they are asking why where studios like Bluepoint where working on a live service GoW rather than just doing something in their wheelhouse.

Kingdom Come Deliverence II is probably the standout on that list for myself.

Avowed has potential to scratch that Elder Scrolls itch but I need to see more when it drops and the review embargo is lifted.

@HonestHick The idea that PS gamers prefer single player games is such tired nonsense, IF it was true then why are sales and download charts still dominated by multiplayer games. Why did COD6 still sell incredibly well on PS if they all prefer single player games, its just a silly narrative.

The only reason the likes of Killzone and other franchises fell off is that they cannot compete with the juggernauts like COD / Battlefield and even free to play stuff like fortnite now. Those frnachise can bring out games / content so rapidly that smaller entries simply are not able to compete, regardless of how many platforms they target.

Simpy put its not even worth trying to compete in that area, when Horizon is a much easier way to print money with little competition.

@UndyingInsurgent95 Its a great game overall and one I would say most people should try. Its also better now as they added some extra endings over time. If You played either of the Divinity Original Sin games then this is similar but more refined.

Series S is a great little machine that allows people a very cheap way to play games if you are happy with limitations in frame rate / resolution. All they need to do is offer more support when games are struggling with the lower specs.

BG3 was a once in a generation game and the delay on SX due to the SS version being delayed had to hurt sales. Same with BMW where you had a game that sold like hotcakes but the SS issues meant the SX version was delayed and by the time it launches the hype for the game will be all but gone.

They want parity and have to stick with it or Devs will just get lazy and target the SX, but it also has cost them with some big hitters.

@fatpunkslim If you watch the full interview without the jump cut then the emphasis is on the past tense, not all games that have shipped will transition which makes sense. Future games will also be measured by success, if they are popular they will get the multiplat treatment. Overall however more games will be going over to PS and Nintendo and they will continue to support PC.

He then back this up by saying its why they want to be measured not by console sales going forward but instead use metrics like players and engagement.

Fact is MS is going the publisher route, their focus is now on the games. Consoles will exist, TV apps will exist, but selling games accross every platform is for now their focus.

@Rog-X They have just said the exact opposite in that it doesn't suit them going forward. So even with the new consoles its more and more likely that we will see everything day 1 being on the competition.

Xbox will be Day 1 (3-5) on Gamepass
PS / Switch will be Day 1 with early access fee bolt on.

Proper early access is how BG3 did it, £30 for access to Act 1 for over a year as they developed the game and added new stuff. You received a 50% discount for testing the game early.

This modern practise of early access is the scummiest thing to come out this generation. 3-5 days is not early access, its not for bug testing, server loads or for anything other than grifting people due to FOMO.

This constant narrative that only PS fans are questioning Xbox future is getting tiring. Plenty of people here who own a series console have also announced concern a how MS is performing this generation due to decreased Console sales, and putting games elsewhere.

Microsoft Gaming are doing incredibly well but its clear that the console has suffered this gen, and without the console GP will suffer or need to change. Personally I could see GP becoming a 1st party sub only and that could persuade Nintendo / Sony to allow it on their platforms as the console is no longer a threat.

Clair Obscur may tempt me down the line but other than that there was nothing on show that would make me rush out to buy on Day 1.

Not saying they are bad, just nothing that interests me.

Maquette is a great little story puzzler game for anyone who has not yet tried it. Its short so plenty of time to finish before it leaves.

@Millionski I could see Gamepass slowly expanding the pay for early access over time as well. It would not take long for them to expand the £30 early access period from 5 days to 2 weeks and people are already paying for it. Making the gap longer and throwing in fomo mixed with reasons like "its half price / i'm paying for future DLC" and it will push more money their way.

Its probably my least favourite trend from this generation but I can only see it getting worse a way to recoup some cash

@fatpunkslim People keep mentioning the idea of Steam being available on Xbox but there has been no proof and I just don't see it happening. It would cannibalise their own storefront and just funnel money towards valve.

Its wishful thinking just because someone suggested it would be a clever workaround to get PS games on Xbox.

I can't see it being anything from Square or Capcom, anything big from those two would likely get its own showing rather than an Xbox event.

I reckon it will be far less major than what people are expecting, possibly a large IP but maybe not a traditional game IP

The world was a little weak imo from the Pillars games so hopefully they make it interesting in this one. Will see how it goes.

Edit: Should say hoping it will be good, just not convinced by the world.

@Tasuki I mean sure if you want to ignore the devs who themselves have admitted that heroic and mythic encounters are designed knowing that people use addons and they have to inflate difficulty inline with that to keep players interested or the game would be to easy. Its not gate keeping or elitist its just the way the game has evolved, because addons happened and the genie is out of the bottle now. Sure you can play the game using LFD/ LFR at the lowest difficulty levels without any extras but if you want to play at the higher end then, yes that stuff is basically mandatory.

Again this is something FF14 worked around by simply never allowing WoW style addons, but if you tried to take them out of WoW now players would simply leave.

@Tasuki As a WoW player of 20 years I would say the main thing stopping them is that the game is simply not designed for console. The biggest problem with WoW over the years is its been tuned up and up with every expansion from a relatively slow 1-2 button rotation, to high apm intensense encounters where gameplay almost mandates the use of Addons, Weak Aura and Macros. You can play with out them but frankly its going to be a miserable time, and you will be playing at a disadvantage for any competitive play . As @WildConcept6 has suggested I think any version of WoW on Xbox would have be altered quite a lot to exist as a console only version because I don't think MS would be happy allowing the addons that PC WoW requires. That would require such a monumental effort with its own team, and frankly Blizz are pretty poor at keeping up with what they already have going on.

Sure they could go the Classic route and just release classic WoW but players would want to advance and at that point you start hitting the problems that advanced WoW brough to the game.
EDIT: I should add even if they could do Classic I don't know how popular it would be outside of PC because Classic is so dated it relies heavily on nostalgia to make it decent.

FF14 gets around the WoW issue because from the get go it was designed with console in mind which is why it has a longer GCD, highly telegraphed boss fights that are repetative dances, rather than heavy RNG based encounters.

Its a great game but I just don't see it making its way to console any time soon if only for the work and cost required to make it work.

@Millionski I am in agreement that 1year won't make much difference from a technical point. On that ground for me 2028 should be the next generation of consoles for both parties.

I do however think it makes a difference from an emotional standpoint. MS cutting their losses and trying to jump start the next generation early because they failed to meet expectations is a kick in your bits for customers who put faith in the series only for it to be cut short.

2026 Feels far to early and imo would be a kick in the teeth for anyone who bought into the series ecosystem expecting the standard generational cadence, especially when you factor in the diminishing returns of each generation.

Q4 2027 ready for christmas would be the earliest they should release imo.

@Cikajovazmaj I don't think there has been any data outside of really vague statements like "Biggest single day increase of gamepass users" when COD launched but in reality unless those subs are sticking around, which they are probably not long term, then its kinda meaningless. The number has been sitting pretty stagnent for a long time now (around 33m) and had it seen any real growth they would be shouting out numbers from the rooftops to show platform growth.

Even if they are getting some users via other devices, which they will be. Its certainly not making up the difference for the 5:1 ratio on console sales in November.

As many others I think they jumped on the Streaming idea 10 years to early and its probably going to hurt them into the next generation also.

@Weebleman The point is by adding in "other companies" he made it a loaded statement and that was intentional. He could easily have just said "no comment" with further expanding on it to make it sound exactly like a hidden message.

@Weebleman Whilst i agree that Phil did not technically lie, there is no denying that he chose his words to purposefully throw a grenade out there and cast doubt on the whole situation. Likely because it was happening a few times in close successsion, and so its right that people are now calling him out for it.

@ValentineMeikin Their has been lots of similar stories of smaller devs all saying MS simply doesn't give them the same level of support as they would the bigger names like Capcom. Recently a dev publicly shamed them just to get a response faster.

@nomither6 if they try to make one that's like a pic then yeah I agree. I would suggest they go the same route as sonny and just stick to one locked to their own platform. I think a Xbox device simply called Xbox Go that uses the same dash, allows the same games from your library can be used as a controller etc has enough benefits without it trying to compete with a Windows pad and being over complicated

@nomither6 I get the idea, but I just don't see a place for it. For a PC lite console, I think Steam will probably beat them to the punch and produce something better, cheaper and more open source.

In general if the industry does keep heading towards PC then I would say Steam is the one to watch for as its the ultimate digital library.

@nomither6 Buying a Xbox branded PC would basically defeat the whole purpose of moving to PC where you have a greater choice of components and suppliers to choose from.

You would just be paying double the price for parts that any local company could stick together, which likely better support and service.

@abe_hikura For me its also the fact that the video is saying how it builds on the XBOX brand, but then he talks about Gamepass, xcloud etc. Not XBOX Gamepasss, just gamepass. In the same way we have people always hyping up micrsoft gaming, not XBOX gaming.

everyone talks about boosting the brand but everything is tied to not actually using the brand name they are wanting to boost. The biggest issue with Xbox as I said in another thread is the core brand of Xbox which is just not as well known as playstation.

@Balaam_ It Just Works... the official slogan of something that absolutely does not work. 😂

@TheEstablishment I would disagree and say Xbox as a brand is at an extreme low. MS financially might be doing incredible and they might list it under "xbox" on their balance sheets, which looks great due to recent aquisitions.

But that is not the same as the Xbox brand is doing incredible. The brand awareness and global reach is the issue, not microsofts bottom line.

@x3King84 You have a very similar view to myself, I have a gaming PC and PS5 for the reason that I can play most games downstairs on the big comfy sofa infront of a big screen. For anything MS I just grab it on PC day 1. But if you really want to play Sony games day 1 then its still likely locked to the console.

For me the Xbox just has very little purpose if you have a console and a PC. Sure you could also have an Xbox and buy the game on one platform to get it on both, but I don't see any real benefit to that as you are only playing on 1 device at a time.

Going down the publisher route is the best way for them imo as they will never match Sony on sales. GP is so heavily tied to consoles that they both rise or fall together, and subs stopped growing a long time back.

Then you add in that Valve are producing a steam deck console and you get the final kicker that Valve will beat them in their own strategy to the PC in a living room machine with a much larger shared library, from a company with way more trust overall.

@trev666 Because its all the same company that has individual sites for each platforms, and when the game is coming to PS in a few months it makes sense to give players a link to their sister sites advanced preview

it no different to all three sites posting article links to Time Extension

@fatpunkslim Ofc you can give a 6/10 to a game if you feel that the substance behind the shine is not there. The review praises the style, setting, performaces, menu transitions and much more. But they conclude that behind all that shine the core gameplay of the stealth and combat is not good enough.

@RamiBalek "What concerns me is that this website, and other Xbox fans website, should be a positive force to the Xbox brand. By giving all major exclusives 4s and 6s it does quite the opposite and people always use this to discredit the brand."

All sites should gives games the review they feel its deserves or reviews are pointless. They just felt the last two games were not great. Suggesting they should review all Xbox games higher because they are an Xbox website is certainly a take.

The review reads fairly as it was always going to be a divisive game. First person vs Third Person has been brought up for months and it was always going to take something incredible to really convince people that they made the right choice. Forced basic stealth dragging on to long is also another thing that player regularly hate in games so is fair to be called out.

Maybe for some 6 is to low and some feel it should have been a more generous 7. By the same token it sounds like other sites giving it a 9 or 10 are to generous, so it all balances out in the end.

@HonestHick the amount WoW makes on transmogs and mounts is disgusting, they recently dropped a $90 mount. Its predatory fomo at its worst imo, but it will sell and it will generate them plenty of cash in the long run.

The only hope I had for the buyout was that we would see less transactions in the game but its safe to say I was pretty naive there.

@CadErik The reality of the SE situation however is so far all they have really offered is words, but nothing to back them up. FF14 made sense to bring over as its an mmo and its a constant cash churn. But out side of talk there has been no action on the bigger single player titles yet, and they are the ones people want.

More people being able to player 7 / 16 would be great, but until they deliver its currently just words.

That is both hideous and incredible... so much so that I think I like it

The continued nonsense about an Xbox tax is utter nonsense, The game was rated low by an xbox reviewer, on an xbox fan site.. He is hardly biased to Sony. Starfield was also rated higher by a chunk of reviewers than it should have been based on averages.. or was that an Xbox tax rebate? If you look at multi plat games I find this site is often 1 point higher than their sister sites for reviews. So no the Xbox tax is not real, its just copium for fans.

As for games being marked down for being broken on launch, good they should be. If you want us to accept games being broken on launch and fixed later fine, but sell us the game at £40 and only raise the price to £70 once you fixed everything.

@Banjo- Also I really do not understand this continued narrative that Sony has abandoned the PSVR2 as its simply nonsense. it seems like the entire basis for abandoning it was the news that most first party studios are making PS5 games, and not VR games.

That was always going to be the case as VR is always going to have a smaller user base. The first party games they did make where top tier and there are loads of high quality 3rd party games releasing regularly also.

Not to mention now its bedded in they have started adding VR2 games to premium every month, which shows they have not just abandoned it.

Personally I think VR2 is brilliant and can't imagine playing certain games without it ever again. RE4 for example was incredible, and having to play normally for the Seperate Ways highlighted how transformative it can be for gaming. I don't think I could go back now and Im just glad I have the option of being able to use VR.

@Banjo- With the portal I feel like a lot of that stuff was left out mainly to keep the price down to promote sales. You can use the inbuilt sound, or any wired set, or you can use any bluetooth set if you get a bluetooth jack. You are not solely limited to any one headset.

It just seems a weird issue to have when the majority of headsets will work on the PS5 but you need the Xbox version to get it working on Xbox. Likewise Xbox with those silly expansion cards rather than just allowing users to fit an m2 drive. Both companies have always done questionable things, but Vita was a long time ago and things have changed loads since then.

I think for the device they would make it so the games simply work on the device without every game requiring patches, in the same way the PS5 can play 4 games without everygame being patched. I am pretty sure it would be managable in the timescale they have as we are probably talking 12-18m minimum

@Banjo- How do you mean when you say restrictive? I think it will both companies will deliver a device that plays current gen (Series /5) and previous gen games and be download only.

Given that next gen will likely be very cross gen, like this current one, they should both have a device that launches with a large catalogue of backwards compatible games.

@Banjo- I tend to use youtube for follow up review in those scenarios because I can understand why outlets such as PX, PS, IGN don't have the time to go back and re-review a game based on patches.

I also agree that games being rated higher is an issues because we are now at the point where unless a game is 8, 9 or 10 then its basically dead on arrival to most people. 7 is mid, 6 is poor and anything lower is just garbage. Its essentially means all games are marked out of 5 because most reviewers are reluctant to use the bottom end of the scale. There are games on all platforms that suffer from being given 9s or 10s when they should really be 8s, and it feels like its to get them into the "good score range".

I have not played SM2 yet so can't comment on that but I imagine I would be more forgiving or reused content as Spiderman is one of my all time favourite Marvel characters, so personal bias will come in. For Zelda I have not played BotW or TotK as they lost me on the new games, I watched a mate play them and they just felt like they had lost the soul of the older Zelda games that i grew up with.

I think part of the problem is that reviewers have also started largely ignoring bugs in a lot of reviews on the basis that it will get fixed at some point, so when you get a review that removes marks for bugs people get more irate over the score.

Bethesda games always have the usual bethesda janky bugs but reviewers ignore them because its bethesda. Personally I think thats just as bad because it creates a standard where bugs become the norm and accepted. So personally I prefer reviews that do knock marks off for rough performance, because that should be the point of the review.

@Dalamar73 I think the most expensive game I bought for it was Mayhem in Monsterland and it was pricey because it was not initially available in stores if I recall and was mail order only via the C64 magazine.

That said it was one hell of a game

@Dalamar73 Heading to John Menzies newsagents to check out the games for my Commodore 64. It mad to think how they used to be one of the main places for games before actual game shops became popular.

Really hope this is good because I imagine the action style will make the world more interesting than PoE did. The games where not bad but I found the world to be very bland with races that just didn't feel super interesting overall.

@StylesT Reviews exist to help inform potential buyers wether they should part with their hard earned money, or not. Its on companies to make sure that review copies reflect the launch version and are available in plenty of time for reviewers to give a fair critique of the whole game.

If a game has an embargo 2 hours before launch on a game that required multiple massive launch patches to fix because the review copies where buggy then studios need to work to better timeframes and not just expect reviews to come in 2 weeks after they are required.

This is not a critique against Stalker, GSM or any platform but should be the standard we push for from all games /studios.

@Banjo- The problem with your arguement is that you are focussing on 6.8% and assuming that figure correlates exactly to the opinion you have formed. People are very capable of buying a console for 1st party exclusives, but also buying more multiplatform games overall.